I like the cover. The rearranged some of the instrumental parts and the girls’ voices is distinctly different from Hikasa Yoko. Most noticably, SCANDAL has four vocalists (all the them) while Houkago Tea Time has one (either Toyosaki Aki (Yui) or Hikasa Yoko (Mio)). While Hisaka’s voice is of a richer quality, the SCANDAL girls, particularly Haruno Ono, render the song with a much more dry-cut almost punkish feel. The improvisations from the original in the cover were creative and gave the song a good new feel while still remaining very loyal to the anime original. The energy is definitely there, but which way it rubs you depends on, well, you. A touch more bass also couldn’t hurt.
Regardless of what one may think of K-ON! as an anime, the majority agreed, before the season even started, that the ED kicks serious ass. The cover is pretty cool and I recommend you all check it out. I kindly threw the YouTube up at the end of the post. You can grab the high quality source off Tokyo Toshokan

I would like to point out here they they should not be all genki and smiling. If they really wanted to stay true to the original they should all be staring kinda into space with no expression on their faces, just like in the ED animation. Oh well, you can’t get always get what you want.

And as promised:

“Otaku” (おたく/オタク) is a Japanese slang term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga, and video games. (Wikipedia)

And that is as tame as it gets. See, on Wikipedia they have to maintain a neutral, balanced, and objective view on topics. It’s fine if you’re researching things like monolithic kernels or the history of Poland, but it’s totally different when you’re reading about a topic that is so crafted by public perception that its dictionary definition is totally buried and forgotten. Let’s look at examples from a source more shaped by community perception.

Otaku is extremely negative in meaning as it is used to refer to someone who stays at home all the time and doesn’t have a life (no social life, no love life, etc)

- death_to_all, Urban Dictionary

Otaku is a Japanese word for house.
As in you never leave it.

Please don’t call yourself an otaku, especially in front of real Japanese people, which you most likely never meet.

- jingjong, Urban Dictionary (link)

And I can’t even find a specific sentence to quote from here. As you can see, and I assume it being no surprise to you, the word “otaku” is not generally seen in a very positive light here on the tubes. For good reason. You’ve been to Sankaku Complex. You’ve read about the 2d waifus and epic otaku rooms funded by thousands of dollars for merchandise. When I was younger, in high school, I had a friend whose AIM was “superotaku544″ or some number. He was basically every negative stereotype against us anime/manga fans all rolled up into one. You know, that guy. The Naruto/Inuyasha fanboy that won’t shut up even if you’re totally not interested. The guy who cosplays to conventions despite having no idea what the hell he’s doing. It’s worse sometimes when they actually don’t even know that much about anime in general. “Oh, so what are you watching this season?” “Oh, I only watch Naruto. Dude check out this awesome forehead protector I bought”.  This was back before I really picked up anime. When I finally started anime I was rather weary at first, just because of what I have seen from my otaku-challanged friend. People like him create the stereotype of anime/manga/eroge/whatever enthusiasts, and to be honest, it’s unfortunate. When people with whom I am not super close with ask me about my hobbies, I don’t tell them that I enjoy watching anime. The perceived notions, stereotypes, and negative judgment is just so much. “Oh Kevin, you have a blog? What do you write about” “Oh, umm… anime” “Oh. *look of total disdain* I see.”

Now, I know there are a good plenty number of friendly folks who enjoy anime to a slight degree and watch very casually. That’s fine, if you’re having fun, who cares? The thing is that you don’t go around calling yourself that terrible word and thinking it’s some kind of badge of honor. Because I can tell you, it’s not. The word “otaku” has become a label; a label infused with all the facepalm worthy, idiotic, and humiliating things some overzealous fans do that makes everyone who enjoy this medium look bad. I’m sure that fans of English soccer (or football. Whatever) are not all crazed hooligans that burn cars and kill people when Manchester loses. I’m sure that not all Italian nightclubs and bars are run by the mafia. And it’s the same way; not everyone who watches anime and enjoys anime culture goes to school wearing a fucking furry tail. I’m not making this up. Oh god bad memories.

And of course, now they are also on the internet. Remember that incident with Chihara Minori’s waterbottle? Admittedly, that wasn’t too big of a deal to me. Sure, you’re putting your dignity as a human being on the line, but Setsuna is a pretty cool guy, it got Atarashii Prelude a whole mountain of hits, and it basically became a kind of a joke. Good for them; if I could trade some of my dignity for hits on Desu ex Machina, I would consider it. No, I’m talking about people who name their blogs “The Otaku Discharge” and talk all day about how they do nothing but watch anime, how awesome their “otaku lifestyle” is, post pictures of their shitty cosplay, and masturbate to Danny Choo. If you exhibit any of these symptoms, I have some advice for you. A blogger heart to heart, if you will. Shut the fuck up. No one cares.

Thankfully, to combat this is are heroes of justice , who seek to clean the annals of the blogosphere once-and-for-all. They have keyboards, and they mean business. Of course, I’m talking about the ‘Otaku’ Elimination Game. Here, they take four blogs a week from their index of blogs about the anime subculture and tear them the fuck apart. I guess I feel rather flattered that I was on their initial hitlist of blogs, which was a who’s who of the anime internet. The list has grown since then, since you get added if you just give them your URL. As Desu ex Machina’s eventual public flogging approaches, I’m rather interested to see how other people feel about this whole “otaku” business. People who whine and complain about the Otaku Elimination Game can’t take a joke. Be happy that people actually took time to read your writing and evaluate it and maybe, just maybe, consider if there is truth in their comments. Regardless, that site has good resources on the concept and more detailed information on the perspective of “otakus”.

Before this post was published, I have used the word “otaku” on this blog exactly three times. And that was because of the lack of a better word. I don’t consider myself an otaku, and that’s because, in case you have not already gathered, I find the term borderline derogatory. Just like with black people with the n-bomb, though I think the context is rather different. But a dilemma does arise. If we do not consider ourselves otaku, what do we call… well, ourselves? If nothing else, humans seek identification, a label. “American”, “Irish”, “11’s”, “Democrats”, “Republicans”, “homosexual”, “transsexual” etc. What is this culture that we write about? Just earlier in this post, you’ve seen me tripping and grasping for words to describe it. “Anime/manga/eroge/whatever enthusiasts” and the like. What term links me to j1m0ne, CCY, Pontifus, Danny Choo, and Moogy? “Anime bloggers”? Then what about Tiamat and manga bloggers? What about m3rryweather and Micchi and eroge bloggers, what about figurine bloggers? Art bloggers? We all share interest in the same culture, but what is it called? Japan? Well, I feel it almost condescending label anime and games as solely “Japanese culture”, because that’s sad. Japanese culture is much more rich and deep than this, we are not worthy of that name, quite simply. What is this network of blogs I read called? “The Otakusphere”? Well, is there something else to call it?

Review: Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

In Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, SHAFT shows us how to make a pretty enjoyable show with minimal effort on their part. If nothing else, Zan is an enjoyable, funny, and clever show that fans of the franchise will enjoy like previous seasons. However, the distinct lack of original material from the manga and noticeable drop in art detail may will leave many fans seeking more, which the show does not deliver.

Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is the third season of the wildly popular Zetsubou Sensei franchise, based on the manga by Kumeta Kouji. Like previous seasons, it follows the ever-in-despair Itoshiki Nozomu and his crazy class. Veterans will notice a change in art style, with slightly more saturated colors and cleaner lines. The show still feels much like Zetsubou Sensei with gags, satire, and politics jokes abound. The structure of this season’s episodes, however, will be the biggest difference viewers will notice. Each episode is divided into three segments, with each segment dedicated to a specific adaptation to a chapter of the manga. While some form of this structure has been used by SHAFT in a few episodes in past installments of Zetsubou Sensei, all 13 episodes this season are exclusively in this format.

While functional, I craved some kind of creativity from the animators or director like we have been used to the last two seasons, and got none. The chapter adaptations are so loyal to the manga that it’s too loyal of an adaptation. SHAFT has literally been accused of just tracing from the manga, which was even referred to in a specific episode. While it is true that many anime are manga adaptations, it’s expected out of directors and animators, as workers in a creative field, to interpret and enrich the media into anime. The script for Toradora! isn’t verbatim from the light novels, and Clannad isn’t just lines and scenes from the visual novel. I’ve read the Zetsubou Sensei manga (one of the few manga I read) and the similarity is just absolutely ridiculous. They do play with art style occasionally, like in episode 8 but overall someone expecting highly from SHAFT will be rather disappointed. Previous seasons do not have this problem. Chapters and gags from the manga were adapted flawlessly and weaved with SHAFT’s art style and Shinbo’s creativity into a product that augments the manga, not replacing it.

So keep in mind that when we praise Zan, we are in reality praising the manga, because the anime essentially perfectly identical, animated versions of the chapters. They introduce some new girls into the show, or at least attempt to. I found Shouko and Miko, a pair of girls who engage in multi-level marketing schemes, quite interesting and I hoped to see more of them. I didn’t. We don’t even get to figure out what Oora, the girl with the ponytail and sloppy uniform, is or anything about her. Zetsubou Sensei absolutely shines from its characters, but in Zan the lack of character development in its new characters cripples the series.

When each episode is basically three chapters, you really can’t complain about the pacing. Admittedly, they picked good chapters to adapt. Some of my favorite chapters, such as the one with the Winter Taisa and the one about sunglasses, were adapted so it was fun to see them turned into an anime.

To wrap up, in pure enjoyment and funny standards, Zan does well. The manga is great and hilarious, and there is so much similarity there is no reason Zan would be anything less. Fans of the series may be disappointed with the lack of original material and fans of director Akiyuki Shinbou will be disappointed with the absence of much of his stylization. How much of this “matters” is up to you, but if you liked the previous series, there is absolutely no reason not to check this one out.

Needless episode 19 is out. I heard it was awesome, I’ll have to grab it later.

At first I was in much despair, but after a day or two it wasn’t too bad. Late at night I would catch up on some older shows I need to finish but mainly I have been rewatching some anime. I’m on episode 18 of a rewatch of Toradora and I hope to finish tonight. I watched the show as it aired and it’s nice and refreshing to come back to it. I remember I picked up Toradora on around episode 5 or 6 after all the hype drew me over and while I enjoyed the show quite a lot, my critique senses were always active. Now I come back and the show has nothing to prove to me, and it’s just a boatload of fun. Toradora’s well balanced cast, voice talent, quality animation, disciplined directing, pacing, and well conveyed plot and dialogue all contribute to a near flawless product. It’s very difficult to make an anime like Toradora, because so much can go wrong. Anyways, enough fagging here. This post is about rewatching anime, and why we do it.

The first reason is quite intuitive. You miss it.

Much like Toradora, my rewatch of the entire Aria series (starting Origination tonight) is fueled by the feeling the series gives me. Of course, you will pick up one or two little new things along the way, but you seek to relive the magic a show enchants you with. The thing with the rewatch is that you are confident you will enjoy the show. Leave your critical analysis aside and just enjoy the show and relive why you loved it so much. I wouldn’t call an anime I finished this January “nostalgia” but there must be some word for the feeling that overcame me the first time I heard Undine again.

The second reason could be that you want to give it anther chance. Did you miss something? Did you not understand something? Perhaps you want to enjoy the show, but you didn’t when you first watched it. Why?

H2O ~Footprints in the Sand~ is rather niche but people who have seen it generally like it a lot. I didn’t mind it but I’m still in the dark as to why it has seen so much praise. You have to realize that sometimes you don’t like a show and it’s not the show’s fault. I found H2O to have an interesting plot and pacing, but some of the motifs are totally undercooked. I don’t want to feel “left out” of the H2O party, nor do I want to come off as closed minded. Perhaps I did miss something here.

And the third reason is that Kyoto Animation thinks it’s 1998 and aired Clannad After Story and K-ON! in 4:3. Now that widescreens (and even Blu-rays) are out, I’m doing a nice slow rewatch of them. As with other anime I am entertaining myself with, I’m planning on finally finishing Gundam 00, which I started almost two years ago, sometime this month. I missed the party with Macross Frontier and Detroit Metal City as well. Those will be complete in a week or two.

Now remember, this episode was a STREAM. so excuse the 360p or whatever. DVD will be out in like 2010

After a near perfect episode 12, we pick up where we left off with Tsubasa Cat part 3. Horie Yui is one of my favorite voice actors and Bakemonogatari is hocchan at her best. The way she renders Tsubasa is both distinctive and compelling; combined with the masterfully written dialogue, it is hard for this episode to be anything but amazing. After a load of dialogue, they go see Oshino and that’s basically the episode. It’s hard to summarize episodes of this show because the show is about the dialogue, not the plot. It’s not about what happened, it’s about the process by which it was presented to have happened. It’s about the the characters say, the way they say it, the reactions. This is why a good seiyuu corps is needed. If you want to find out what happened, go watch the episode yourself.

I particularly enjoyed the scene where Araragi encounters Hitagi in the bike-lot. Araragi’s relationship with Hitagi is unconventional in an anime sense because there is almost no romantic tension. Hitagi is smart and very rarely misunderstands her boyfriend, which is a fresh breath of air compared to many other anime with romance. Also present is some fourth wall breakage, which never goes over too badly if used in moderation.

Oh Saito Chiwa, Aika-chan would have taken offense to all those hazukashii serifu in episode 12

The end of the episode, however, left me most excited. Well, besides this…

if you got gg’s release of the stream, they left in the commercials for the singles of the OPs. They are taking painfully long to come out, especially since they are so fucking good, but after the end credits we get a sneak peek of Horie Yui’s OP for Tsubasa Cat! The little clip I’ve heard sounds fucking amazing and I can’t wait until we get to see the OP, and ultimately (in like January) get the single. It’s called sugar sweet nightmare and sounds great. Definitely check out the commercial after the credits of gg’s release if you haven’t already.

Oh, hi there. Thanks for coming to Desu ex Machina in your annual costumed pagan inspired candy run. Dasaku is a decent neighborhood of trick-or-treating, but only if you know what the good houses are. The old man at Mega Megane Moe, the house down the street, never answers his doorbell. Cokematic gives out cans of soda, he’s that strange man in every neighborhood that thinks soda-pop constitutes as a treat, and that house around the corner is kinda scary. Definitely wanna hit up the house across the street, however. Xephfyre gives out extra candy to Fate/Stay night cosplayers and even copies of Together with House-Husband. Yes, books on Halloween. How many times have you seen that. The dude at the house all the way at the end of the street is psyched for Halloween, with decorations and everything. He’s handing out eroge, so I’m not sure parents want their kids heading over there.

Before I continue, excuse me. This is obligatory.

I am actually tempted to watch Umineko for Maria. Horie Yui voicing a crazed loli? Whom I happened to be 100% pedo for? Perhaps sometime down the road after the whole show has aired and after a night of drinking. Maybe.

What has kevo done for Halloween weekend so far? Well, given that it’s Saturday night Halloween and I’m at home blogging, I’m not exactly going crazy. I did get to go see Tiesto last night. It was intense. I live in Minneapolis, not somewhere cool like Malaysia where I can go to see Chihara Minori and steal her water bottle. Regardless, I like electronica and Tiesto is the best in the business. Imagine like 1000 people squeezed into a cramped nightclub jumping to the beat of Escape Me and I am still trying to figure out how my limbs are all in tact. My ears are still ringing, however.

Watched the new episode of Toaru Kagaku no Railgun today. Ever since K-ON, I’ve slowly begun to really like Toyosaki Aki’s voice work. She has that cute, sweet, airheaded vibe. Railgun is doing around 200 times better than Index so far. The episodic, scenario-based structure is working well to explore the wonderfully interesting characters in the Indexverse. The problem with Index was how it focused on characters no one cared about and threw it’s main cast almost to the curb. Plus, the pacing was terrible for a show that wanted to convey some kind of plot. Railgun will do well to just keep it up at this pace and it will be one of the most solid shows of the season.

Second Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann movie is gonna premiere in San Francisco in November. In English subtitles, no less! I like the movies as supplements to the series, as you can never get enough TTGL and the little changes they make are cool. It’s like a quick rewatch of the whole series. I’m excited to see what they changed in the second movie, as the second half of the series was fucking epicsauce. Oh right, no candy for you if you don’t like TTGL. I hope the DVD will be on sale soon. Unfortunately I won’t be able to get to San Fran because I have neither time or money for a pilgrimage. Regardless, Gurren Lagann the Movie 2: The Lights in the Sky are Stars, opening at Viz Cinema on November 17. If you’re in Cali, go for it. (sauce)

What? You want candy? Fine, here have some. Kids these days…

Art courtesy kohaku (pixiv)

Also, Nadeko with green hair is the best, yeah I said it. 3AM going to sleep.

Slice of Life Sign - Border Between Funny and Trying Too Hard

Our fourth episode of Seitokai no Ichizon was finally released earlier today. I had a midterm in a few hours, so what better way to get in the mood than some anime? Sankaku Complex’s article spoiled it for me that there would be epic Strike Witches parody, so you can imagine how upset I was when Eclipse released a day after they usually do.

In my first post about this show, I said that I was impressed that there was decent pacing and room for this show to grow. As of episode 4, the latter has not really been taken advantage of. It seems that this show is just going to constantly just parody anime. If people are going to start complaining on episode 4, might want to sound some kind of alarm in the animation studio. Lucky Star worked because characters were constantly doing stuff like going to restaurants and the manga shop and stuff. Also the inane smalltalk in the show actually bore some surprising depth occasionally. Seitokai no Ichizon, while entertaining regardless, seems to pander to us, like some kind of ADD child who wants its mommy to pay attention to what they are doing. Parody this, parody that, talk fast this, talk fast there, hey look Kurimu is moe. While entertaining, I am starting to feel the occasional pangs of *groan* as I watch this show. The first half of each episode is always fun and enjoyable, but then I crave some kind of change in pace. I know I am not alone in this sentiment. I want this show to be good. You can’t have cake without sugar, but adding too much sugar makes it nasty. You can’t have fun slice of life without parody and jokes, and it works the same way. There needs to be some kind of reasoning behind the madness. The characters are overcooked and the dialogue is underdone. I’ve been making cooking metaphors for a while but note I still find the show rather enjoyable. I just think so much more can be done with Seitokai no Ichizon and DEEN is letting a potentially game-breaking show go to waste.

Oh by the way, I’ve started using my Twitter account again and I’m going to dedicate it to this blog instead of real life (I’ll have another account for that). So yeah links to it are abound if you feel like stalking your favorite anime blogger, me.

Image source: Fukanaga Kazuhiro (pixiv)

I recently checked out episode 7 from the new K-ON! Blu-ray release. Besides the quality and stuff, there is seiyuu commentary on the alternate audio track. I liked episode 7 (it’s the one where they have Christmas as Yui’s house) and to see it in eye candy 1080p was a great treat. From what I infer the seiyuu basically just say things like “awww…. Chibi Yui-chan is sew kawaiii” but I’m sure enthusiasts will find it really interesting. The rest is basically them having a conversation about random stuff.

Besides 1080p Blu-ray goodness, there is lossless sound, making the ED both eargasm and eyegasm. My laptop cost $1,000 and I bought it this autumn, but when I doubleclick to open this video the fan immediately goes off on max speed. Some parts of the ending theme, like when it zooms out from Mio and does that alpha motion blur effect, my video decoder just goes “nope, not today, kevo” and drops all those frames. Occasionally the video desyncs with the audio and subs because it’s just too much to handle. Technology evolving will make Blu-ray more accessible to everyone eventually. My old laptop (which would have been 2 years old) would not have been able to play this video correctly. For now it’s a luxury for most people to decode Blu-ray.

I pay attention to the soft glow and little tiny details about color and line quality. For people who are not enthusiasts like me, well maybe this is not worth your time. For me, however, this was a super fun watch. It’s just around 2,421,772,331.22 MB but I recommend checking out some Blu-ray releases if you have not already. It’s a fun, novel way to watch your anime.

Enjoy screencaps.